@southparkreferences

So, this game lured me "temporarily" back onto the site in October. And then lasted half a year.

I hope you stay Tas! I can't wait to get a proper game in with you someday

His EoGs are the best part of playing him anyway. You're getting the good part.

I'll write one, but it won't be until tomorrow night.

I took over Austria in the Spring of 1920. The situation was not good. I was getting squeezed out between England and Turkey.

S20:
The press is a little weird (and I read every page when I took over) between A and T. Supposedly they were working together to give A some centers back, but they didn't actually talk about moves and both lamented Austria didn't guess right to save RUM...?! I can only conclude that such language was a farce to save face for both, THM doesn't look like an asshole for attacking MM, and MM gets sympathy and "aw shucks" deflection of humiliation for not getting as many centers as he could? I'm so curious about this. Is this something only really high rated players do, where they agree to give centers back / stop fighting but not actually talk about what the moves will be / guess?

Turkey proposes an agreement where he would own the Northern part of the stalemate line such as WAR/MOS/SEV etc. I reject it. Once Turkey would own that much of me, it would be nigh impossible to stop him from squeezing me out once England backs off. We go back and forth and he agrees to step off.

I move towards a stalemate line / England, and Turkey then stabs me by going ahead and rearranges all his units for the offensive.

A20:
Now I admit I had not contacted England the entire of S20. Nor did he contact me per se. It was a little bit of I wanted absolutely minimal possibility of England using conversations with him against me so I gave him no real ones, he didn't reach out to me, and there was little to talk about tactically: he couldn't attack MOS, I couldn't attack STP, I couldn't stop him from taking MUN if I wanted to, etc.

Beginning of A20 I go straight to England and tell him "it's all yours. I put all my faith in I/T and they blew it, happy Birthday buddy". Now, I'm a big fan of throwing and I was completely willing. I recently won a game from some surprise NWG/BAR convoys and I know how hard it can be to see it coming, suddenly fleets in NAO and STP become a land bridge straight from EDI to STP! England owns BOH!

And the coup de grace: A support to Piedmont (One of I/T complimented me on this in-game!)

I make it very clear that I'll play tit for tat: I started out friendly but then I got betrayed so I'm going to betray back until I get some friendly again.

W20:
This build/disband decides the game (not the only thing that does of course, but this was one of them/one time). If I keep SEV/UKR and disband TYR/VIE, it's pretty dead in the water for everyone but England as he can force Tyrolia and Vienna especially with my help from Galacia. If I disband SEV/UKR, we can still repel him off.

I choose to trust I and T and keep the defensive units in Tyrolia and Vienna. England at this point is incensed at me. This solo attempt by him will severely undercut any negotiating power he has in the future.

S21:
England immediately pulls back. Of course I/T doesn't know if that'll actually happen so they go along with putting me back in my home centers and T retreats his fleets.

A21:
More cooperation

S22:
More cooperation

A22:
Turkey isn't being nearly as fast with giving me my centers back as I would like. I make moves to prevent a stab and luckily call it. I freak out of course to Italy, and One of my favorite lines ever in this game was Italy asking "was that planned"? And me being quite unhappy he could even entertain such an idea. We agreed we should both sleep on it before discussing it further....

At this point I mute Turkey. I explain that it's clear his word is worth 0%. 0%. He already knows what I want (my home centers back; him to stop attacking me, him to retreat back to his homeland, etc etc) and thus there's nothing up for debate, I will push against him until I get that regardless of anything else, even if England comes in for the kill again.

This is where I'd like to formally ask THM about my use of the mute feature and its effectiveness in different spheres
-Forcing him to mediate through Italy so he couldn't two-face between us
-Making him unable to ascertain information from me
-Making him unable to bluff me (even if I don't believe him, it's good Diplomacy/Poker/Bluffing to be able to influence people even if they try their best to ignore/overcome it)
-Worry about what if there DOES need to be a stalemate line and I am still refusing to communicate

Of course, those are the possible advantages I see from my side (in addition to calming me down emotionally), but due to it's *incredible* stigma around here I thought I'd focus on this question/issue/topic.

I'd like to mention my argument to I (and T) about why to keep me in, for posterity and analysis and storytelling. The idea is two-fold:
A) England can come in and solo as they attack me and I can thrash about long enough to give him the solo (as almost happened before)
but most importantly:
B) If Turkey cuts me out, it's fairly trivial for them to split Italy too. And any player that would so viciously and greedily (as I sold it) stab me TWICE to cut out Austria, would also be willing to try to 17/17 from the two corners (it's not unreasonable, imagine they're stalemated in Mid/Top, Turkey only needs to secure Tunis basically to get the 17/17 since giving all of Iberia and MAR to England is still fine; it's not 100% certain but it ain't the most risky thing we've seen either).

I'd like to think I was pretty convincing because the whole game Italy seemed to be on my side and talking down Turkey. There's an especially strong point later where he not only uses words (he claims to have told Turkey he'll throw if I get cut), but there's straight up action as well (WES-TYS in A23).

S23:
I don't know if Turkey was fully on board here, but I push back into my home centers. RUM-SEV was a good move for me...if it was Autumn. I didn't look far ahead enough to realize it would be forced disband and make play A23 down a unit and that was my tactical error, saving a dot in the spring with no way to save it in the Autumn isn't the best play to say the least.

As said above, I go pretty hard on Italy with my Diplomacy, and he's playing mediator between us with great patience and effort and diplomatic skill. My thrashing/muting/personality may have cost us the game if Tas wasn't such an amazing player.

A23:
Italy lets England reclaim MAO and moves WES-TYS, creates a situation where I can move and/or retreat to VEN. We are past words; Italy has put his full force behind me and me staying around. I'm still holding off pretty well and I guess correctly again re:war/mos (It's not like THM had any tell or anything, even if I didn't have him on mute, it was just intuition and/or luck).

This puts the nail in the coffin for this Turkish crusade.

S24:
England NMRs.

I keep pushing back towards my homecenters. Italy tells me Turkey unconditionally accepts our alliance but I keep my guard and my suspicion up. He does exactly as he's told.

A24:
Turkey unconditionally accepts our alliance plan again. There's some worries if I build a fleet but I make it clear I've earned the right to not swap VEN/TRI just yet.

Here's the thing:
I need to have enough firepower/buffer that I can both
0) Lost MOS/WAR which would be forced if he chooses to do so (unless I sent everything and left myself open to Turkey, which I refuse to do so. For the rest of the game I/we play like WAR/MOS are pink)
1) stop an English solo, which means units in BOH, TYR, GAL, RUM, UKR at the very least for the minimal stalemate
1.5) have empty dots to support non-dot BOH/GAL/UKR units
2) Have enough buffer that I feel comfortable I can react to a Turkish stab/squeeze

[OK maybe that was like 4 things but whatever, I do what I want]

Because England keeps begging us to cut someone out, not Turkey because I'm off the menu, his pulling back all his units gives us breathing room to figure things out.

I agree to swap VEN/TRI. This 100% ensure we can't stab each other. The big question is whether we cut out Turkey.

I'm highly against it. You might think I'd be for it after all those stabs, but I considered them just someone doing what he thought was the proper play; they weren't particularly irrational (even if I could successfully argue, and truly believe over all, that stabbing me would not be the right move). It goes back to my argument of why they couldn't cut me:
Cutting out Turkey would create a power imbalance and greedy situation where cutting out one person meant you had to accept that you yourself would be next and they would try to two-way draw.

Plus England was very mean to me in press when I changed my mind about throwing.

S25:
We swap VEN/TRI. I move my units such that at any point we can set up
TYR s BOH
RUM s GAL
SEV s UKR
which is a stalemate line.

Turkey continues to unconditionally agree to the Alliance's wishes.

A25:
England NMRs again

S25-S27:
England unsuccessfully argues we should cut Turkey out, and then when it becomes clear we won't, argues that he won't accept a 4-way draw and the only way to end it would be for us to go and eliminate him. This was some hard core arguing to, he went so far as to look up my forum posts about how you should always play to win/maximize and threw those in my face, etc.

Also I mentioned in global that anything England sent me I'd immediately and unconditionally share with my allies
1) so he'd stop bugging me with offers I had already refused 10 times
2) prove my loyalty to my allies

I wasn't kidding. I made a google doc, gave links to I and T, and copy and pasted anything and everything England sent me AND my replies. I'd love to hear back from I/T if that mattered/did anything, and from E if you thought I was kidding or not.

We/I call his bluff and/or deny him on the whole "take my centers" thing.
1) It would be super easy for him to change his mind; owning NOR/STP and DEN completely shuts out most of the board and then he only has to worry about defending the west.
2) It would create HUGE power imbalances as only Italy and I can take his centers, and mostly Italy. The logistical and diplomatic efforts required to make that work have just an overwhelming activation barrier

After declarations in global of loyalty to the alliance and the stalemate and willingness to appeal to mods from I/A/T, England draws.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Spring, 1927
Four-way draw between
08 Austria
14 England
07 Italy
05 Turkey
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Conclusions:
Very tough situation, very tough game, some really good players.

As alluded to in my first post, most people saw the situation I took over as a done deal / hopeless, but it was great end-game experience. There's little things about me like my willingness to mute/throw that I hope made it more exciting, even if I can't objectively say I was more suited for it ;)

Playing with THM and Tas was a blast. Tas especially, he really put in the Diplomacy and Negotiation and even tactical help to get us through it. At one point I straight up took the plan he sent me, reworded it from second to first person, and sent it to THM because it was just so much more elegant and persuasive and concise than anything I could write (I asked forgiveness rather than permission to do that...).

Playing with Sh@dow was as exhausting and exasperating as ever. It's objectively clear that trying to boss people around, constantly side-step and re-logic statements, and just throwing up paragraphs and paragraphs of text, regardless of whether I've already denied the validity of an argument or given a final answer, works on many many people, as evidenced by his record, but it is just anathema to me for some reason and we never get along, and some truly nasty words were exchanged when he wasn't muted. I have nothing nice to say except that he explored every angle (except brevity) and that is certainly to his credit in that respect

Also 48 hour phases are tortuous. Life is too short for anything over 25.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This EOG is from my memory and looking at the maps; it's quite possible I got something wrong and please correct me if I did. I'm also happy to answer any questions.

I think

"I took over Austria in the Spring of 1920"

shall be the opening lines of my autobiography. It has a very nice novel-sounding tone to it.

I'll do a full EOG later, but will respond to Austria's direct questions.

1. Austria muting Turkey. In my opinion, your use of the mute feature was largely irrelevant. If anything, it just made things more straightforward because I didn't need to exchange press with you. The only thing keeping you alive was Italy's goodwill and the threat that he would throw the game to England on your behalf if I persisted. What mattered at that point, from my perspective, was my press with Italy and whether I believed his threat. I considered your in-game mute infantile, and it made me feel justified in trying to cut you out (if only Italy would let me).

2. Austria sending a Google Doc link. I looked at it once out of curiosity, the first season you set it up. I didn't look again. Anything external like that can be faked, so it had limited value. Either you would be tempted by England and try to reduce the draw (likely by attacking me) or you wouldn't, and I didn't expect the Google Doc would give me advance warning. I did take your effort in creating/maintaining it as at least a sign that you strongly wanted to give the impression of 4wd solidarity.

3. You did indeed guess well on War/Mos for a few turns in a row. Had you not, I might have pressed my luck anyway despite Italy's threat to throw.

Thanks for the responses! Very useful for me in the future.

Watched this one off and on from the beginning, was a pretty fun match to see unfold. There was a lot of back and forth on who was head of the pack, for quite a while the A/I alliance was looking like that'd have a very easy coast in the game until their falling out in 07, very curious to hear the story behind that. The off and on between Turkey and Austria between 07-10 was also interesting to watch, i can only imagine what was going on behind the scenes there.

You've got to give Sh@dow his due on this one considering how well he did later in the game considering he never seemed to really have a steady alliance aside from the temporary agreements of ceasefire with Austria. I'd suspect a great deal of his success was attributed to three really strong players stuck being as neighbours on the far side of the map all cancelling each out with domestic fighting allowing Sh@dow a great deal freedom to leverage being a corner country and play to his strengths of being a strong move strategist.

Really good job riding that out Valis, it really did look like a lost cause walking into that especially after that first round in S20.

Solid game guys, shame there wasn't a more definitive outcome but still awesome. I can only imagine the fatigue coming off this game after five months.

Bleah. I'm pulling a work all nighter (and currently procrastinating), so no EOG from me tonight. I'll do it when I can.

Out of curiosity, did Sh@dow vote draw in the end, or was it a force draw?

I believe England actively pressed the draw vote, because he was online and checking the game at the time and I hadn't actually gone to the mods

I don't know how I could ever write an EOG for this game. 1901-1910 itself would take 4-5 hours to write, especially details of negotiations with Italy, Austria and Russia...Plus, it would be futile without the others (MM, Tas,THM, Thucy) chipping in. So, I will just stick to addressing a few points raised.

Bottomline is - Congrats to Austria for getting Italy to draw the game.

I think forcing the 4WD was poor spirit from Italy - He is a brilliant player, far better than me - and till the last 4-5 years I really enjoyed his presence in the game - but at the end, he stalled the game just to spite me. And that is bloody sad - but he doesn't care what I think about it anyway.
I loved the part where THM recovered from a poor position - thoroughly enjoyed watching that unfold. I'm also a little surprised THM got successfully blackmailed after having played so strongly and coordinated with me all game till the last 2 years. I was shocked really, not just surprised - but who knows, if he actually believed Italy, maybe that was the right play. But then he gave up so much position, he could have been eliminated danger free at the end if Italy wanted. In hindsight, I could have given Italy more leeway in mid-game, but I was loathe to do so as he had also shown willingness to stab whenever he could, prompting me to do the same in return, and leading to a downward spiral.

Yes, I did draw - after spending 15 odd years trying to reduce the draw and 4 years trying to break the Triple Alliance but Italy refused to let it happen. I personally find it a sorry and pathetic end to a game I enjoyed in the beginning and middle. Not reducing the draw out of spite is unconscionable from my subjective standpoint.

So, lets face it - when most people on the site make statements about the 'spirit of the game', it is sheer hypocrisy - yes, especially you Valis, that much is proven by this game.
Also, your memory/understanding is stunningly poor - I was not incensed at you for not throwing to me and I explicitly told you that repeatedly. (In fact, I *respect* you for not throwing to me, I find anyone who throws a game to be puerile) - I was incensed at you for lying to me about the builds just to fuck around with me - when it served no in-game purpose. Even 30 seconds before the deadline, you kept your charade up which had no value whatsoever other than you getting a kick out of it. Anyone in my position would be incensed by that.

Yes VI, a great deal of my mid-game success can be attributed to those 3 strong players being far away. Though, I didn't have an easy time in my corner either with a vengeful F,G. The only part where I played well was to recover from a very bad position. At one time I had, F and G hell bent on revenge and Italy riding on them. Getting Austria to stab Italy was my big coup - I spent a lot of effort on that. Thereafter, the recovery was easy and mainly involved marathon negotiations and mutual stabbing between Italy and me - and then the 1 or 2 moves to get rid of Russia and eliminate him was a decently played phase too. Rest of the time, my play was average and I never really came close to threatening a solo - something Italy knew all too well throughout.

Thanks for your honest thoughts Sh@dow

Whoops, just realized I never did an EOG statement for this game. Bumpity bump to keep it from locking.

Suppose I should bump this thread...

Only if you still want to...

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